Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/14

into a billowy sea. Imperial not only became its peer in importance, but its annihilator as well. The savior or the creator of the one became the destroyer and the grave of the other. It was water from the Colorado River that brought Imperial into being, and it was water from the same source that gave Salton its watery burial.

It was not with the spirit of rivalry, however, that Imperial wrought Salton's annihilation. Instead, it is said to have been due to neglect. The main canal for the Imperial Valley irrigation system, which makes use of about fifty miles of what was once the channel of the old Alamo River, draws its water from the Colorado River at a point about ten miles below Yuma, and near the international boundary line between California and Mexico. At this intersecting